I think that my PC has reached retirement age( unless I find a way to sell it to the Egyptians or pakistanis ). :(

After the problems I had with my modem and the USB ports,yesterday that piece of shit betrayed me again.My primary Hard Disk died making me loose over 60 gigs of movies,music and programs. :wall:

Luckily I was saving critical documents/work on the second drive. ;)

So if you don't hear of me in the next days,it will be because my pc is dead for good. :help:

what happened (for computer geeks):

I shut down my pc,in order to watch the football game.When I restarted the computer I got this msg:

Hard disk failure

But here is the strange part : In the bios the primary hard disk is now called

MAXTOR ATHENA

insteed of

MAXTOR firmware number

hm,go figure....

I have already tried data recovery though windows cd and other programs,but the hard disk doesn't work anymore(i've switched jumpers,ide positions with no results)

You can always have some data center recover whats inside the disc for you if they are of critical value.

I assume the disc didnt have SMART option to warn you on boot sequence? Most of the time it lets you know before the disc dies.

I got no warning(no smart options snce the hard disk is quite old),just a regular turn off and restart of the computer.

I googled through the net and from what I understand it is a firmware failure.

It seems to be a common error with your model. Hope the software helps. Maybe Maxtor site also has some free software to fix it as well. Search their knowledgebase too before trying this software ;)

I have already searched their database,but guess what?They don't mention the Matrox Athena bug... :Cursing:

But there are many users who had the same problem with me.....

And the prize for the worst Hard Disks ever goes toooooooooo........ MAXTOR!!!!

Never ever buy one,prefer WD.

for starts throw the disk from your bed on a soft surface like a thick cloth.
If that doesn't work put the disk in 2-3 plastic bags and then keep him in the freezer during the night,this might grant you 1 hour of accesability to your disk.Try changing cables.Hmmm i can't remeber any other solutions right now may be after work..

I had a bad experience with Maxtor too, many years ago. It completely failed on me after only 3-4 weeks of use! (It was a brand new computer). I lost part of my thesis on it too... and nothing was recoverable! :gang beat: At the end Maxtor replaced it with a new drive for free but I had to first mail in the broken one as proof... :angry:

It's common practice to send in the old faulty part in order to get the one.. Maxtor though has an all time record of faulty disks...Right now i have 3 dead disks 200GB & 160GB........I wanted to try my luck....

Thanks everyone for your advice.I found this demo software which should do the trick:

http://www.salvationdata.com/hfr2.0_detail.htm

Hopefully I will be able to save some of the data on the Hard Disk.I'll let you know when I'll try it out!

Of course I wont use the disk again after that.....

As i say since my first HD died. BACKUP, BACKUP, BACKUP!
Exept the HD in my PC I also have an external HD updated every week and RW-DVD updated every month!
I also have a USB stick with all URL, and passwords for the sites. B)


I hope you can save as much as possible Cam. Good luck.

solutions;


1- backup

2- partition

3- use "HDD Regenerator" (http://www.ivanview.com/HDD-Regenerator-review1340.html)

very useful

(http://www.newfreedownloads.com/Windows-Utilities/File-Management/HDD-Regenerator.html)

4- HDD repair and data recovery
(http://www.brothersoft.com/file_disk_management/data_recovery/hdd_scan_and_restoration_program_30618.html)
(http://www.brothersoft.com/file_disk_management/data_recovery/flobo_hdddocrecovery_29332.html)

5- Data Recovery and File Recovery
(http://www.freedownloadmanager.org/downloads/Recover_Files_Data_Recovery_36773_p/)



regards,
CDTRF